Claudia Martin, an aspiring nurse and daughter of a Guatemalan landscaper, is the youngest user in Palm Beach County to die from the headaches of the new coronavirus. She’s 22.
Claribel Cardenas-Gamboa, mother of Belle Glade, 33. Jose Díaz Ayala, Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Deputy, 38.
This deadly respiratory disease killed José Antonio Sapon Alvarez, a healthy landscaper from Jupiter who is remembered as a “great goalkeeper” of his football team in Guatemala. He’s 35.
He claimed that Glorivi Andujar, 39, and his brother, Alexander, 41, 10 days away after the maximum of his circle of relatives became infected. And that led to Bayro Vázquez Escobar, a landscaper who was the main supplier of his wife and children. 41.
These are just some of the faces of an unexpected statistic on the pandemic record: although COVID-19 continues to kill older, whiter Floridians, when it becomes fatal for under-60s, it disproportionately kills minorities, a Palm Beach Post investigation shows state medical records.
While two-thirds of people over the age of 60 who die from COVID Florida are white, the opposite is true for younger people: two-thirds are black or Hispanic.
In Palm Beach County, the trend is even more pronounced: 70 of the 78 deaths under the age of 60 are from other people of color. Of the 42, there were Latinos.
Only 14 other people under the age of 40 died in Palm Beach County. Nine were Latino.
Statistics reveal the dangers and vulnerabilities of poor functioning during the pandemic. Many do not have access to fitness care, lack education, barely understand the spread of the disease and have jobs in which staying at home or taking social distance is not an option.
“It’s shocking,” said Dr. Terry Adirim, president of Florida Atlantic University’s Department of Integrated Biomedical Sciences, who said he had made findings in an exam he plans to publish.
“The county and the state use this knowledge to focus policies, interventions, and resources to protect these populations.”
Many of COVID-19’s youth deaths are Central American immigrants who rarely, if ever, see a doctor, said Father Frank O’Loughlin, executive director of the Guatemala-Maya Center in Lake Worth Beach, which houses a Latin American population. and it’s also a hot spot for coronavirus cases.
Every Saturday, the center performs a COVID check at a park south of Lake Worth Community High School, which attracts an average of 500 people.
“The other day we had many visits without an appointment, and no kids we evaluated had noticed a doctor in his life. So why would it be a great wonder when those other people are being disguised? They never gained physical attention,” O’Loughlin said.
“We are seeing others succumb to this COVID because of the poverty of their physical care. There is still a “harvest of shame,” he said, referring to journalist Edward R. Murrow’s 1960 documentary that exposed the difficult situations of living and running migrant staff in Belle Glade.
Sixty years later, the situations are equally depressing for Hispanics who paint on farms and nurseries, in landscape groups, and in structures.
Many are undocumented and do not have a driver’s license or non-public transportation. They embark on cars and buses to make paintings in jobs where social distance is not possible. Before and after the paintings, they clung to small houses and apartments with various circles of relatives or roommates.
Add language barriers and fitness concerns from the government seeking to provide preventive assistance, and this is a recipe for contagion.
“Not a week goes by without reports of the circle of relatives who have fallen ill,” said Amanda Escalante, coordinator of a literacy and parenting program at the Maya-Guatemala Center.
She estimated that “probably 100” other people from families enrolled in the program have become ill, some fatally. Some families have noticed that a member recovers, only to see other illnesses weeks or months later.
“When a member of the family circle is infected, they automatically transmit the virus to other members,” he said.
At JFK Medical Center, the closest hospital to the organization of Latin American communities in and around Lake Worth Beach, many patients are presenting “already complex in their presentation, making paintings a little more difficult to prevent deterioration,” said Dr. Kleper De Almeida, a Specialist in Infectious Diseases.
“We have noticed that families come together. I took care of husbands and young people at the same time,” she said. “More of that, especially in Latinos.”
Of all hospitals in the county, JFK recorded the number of deaths from COVID-19, from July 112 to 31, adding 64 minorities, according to the medical examiner’s records.
Many of these inflamed people are staff members who feel they still have no other option to work, even if they experience symptoms. Escobar, the landscaper who died in June, the only supporter of his wife and children, according to a gofundme page.
Maria, an undocumented landscaper who stores a space in Lake Worth Beach with six other members of the family circle, had been ill for a month before giving positive.
“She told her company it was positive, but she didn’t care,” said her daughter, Dorcas, who spoke on the condition that her family’s last call would not be used.
“They said, “If you leave, you’ll lose your job.” So she had to keep working. What would you do if you stopped? They’d kick us out of our homes. What would you do then?
Now the other six people in their homes are infected, adding Dorcas, a single mother 8 months pregnant and her 3 young children.
“When they took me to the hospital, I couldn’t breathe,” he said. ‘They said, ‘Luckily you got here today. You wouldn’t have survived any other way. »”
Dorcas, whose family is from Santa Eulalia, a picturesque town in northeastern Guatemala, said she is recovering at home but her mom is still sick and still working.
But not all young people suffering from COVID-19 of color worked as workers.
Ayala, one of the first to respond in Florida to die from COVID-19, a PBSO correctional officer with underlying fitness issues.
Nikima Thompson, 41, an experienced dispatcher at the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, where earlier this year, 44 dispatchers hired COVID-19, according to the South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Thompson, who was black, died at Delray Medical Center on May 4.
Dieugrand Nazaire, who died in April at the age of 43, a popular math instructor at Lake Worth High School. Nazaire, black and diabetic, left behind a wife and six children.
Claudia Martin, at the age of 22, the youngest death by COVID in Palm Beach County, had a speech hurdle and suffered a seizure at the age of 3. He shared a space in Lake Worth Beach with his parents and a sister, none of which viruses. His father works as a landscaper.
Martin, who didn’t have fitness insurance, worked in day care. His circle of relatives does not know how he contracted COVID-19 before he died on June 4, 8 days after arriving at JFK.
He went to the hospital not because of non-unusual symptoms of coronavirus, but because he lost his ability to speak or respond to his family’s communications.
After his admission, he tested positive for coronavirus, suffered an epileptic seizure and never regained consciousness. He was diagnosed with a lack of oxygen in the brain and COVID encephalitis.
His circle of relatives wonders if he contracted the virus in JFK. A hospital spokesman said JFK’s medical staff would not comment on Martin’s case.
Seven miners in Florida died from COVID-19 until Wednesday, according to the Florida Department of Health. The youngest is a 9-year-old woman from Putnam County, Kimora “Kimmie” Lynum, whose circle of relatives said she had no underlying physical problems.
Many minors had underlying physical condition issues, according to reports from forensic doctors, and added 11-year-old Black Daequan Wimberly in Miami-Dade, Yansi Ayala, 11, in Broward, 16-year-old Estelia Pérez in Miami. -Dade and 17-year-old white Carsyn Davis.
COVID-19 deaths are traced through two agencies in Florida. The Florida Department of Health provides updates that appear on the holders. But the DOH does not announce the date of death or the race of those who die.
To analyze the races, The Post relied on the knowledge of county medical examiners, all of whom are collected and made under state public records legislation through the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Agency numbers don’t exactly stick to each other. Autopsies are not over even after doH has made the decision to have coronavirus in a patient. For example, while the DOH reported 782 deaths of others under the age of 60 as of July 31, forensic doctors reported 732 deaths.
Most of those who die from COVID-19 are 60 years of age or older, representing 27% of the state’s population. About two-thirds of Floridians who die in this age organization are white, and the figure reaches 70% in Palm Beach County, according to reports from medical forensics.
In children under 60, the opposite is true. In Palm Beach County, 90% were other people of color. In Broward County, 86% are black or Hispanic. In Miami-Dade County, where Hispanic citizens account for a majority, minorities account for 89% of deaths.
In the 3 counties in South Florida, more of those who die in this age organization are black, 43%, than Hispanic, 40%.
“The effects are more excessive than I expected,” said Adirim of FAU. “Palm Beach County is made up of 19% black and 22% Hispanic. Therefore, deaths can be expected to be proportional to the population, and this is obviously the case.
The surge in cases in the towns around Lake Okeechobee, a one time hotspot, has slowed but minorities there are still vulnerable to the disease.
“We want to do anything to make sure those black and brown people get more physical attention,” said Tammy Jackson-Moore, co-founder of Guardians of the Glades, a close-knit advocacy organization working on behalf of the Glades. Communities
Lakeside Medical Center at Belle Glade recorded 25 coronavirus deaths as of July 31, according to reports from medical forensics. Each and every one was other people of color. Six were under 60.
“The loss of life is simply unacceptable,” said Melissa McKinlay, Commissioner of Palm Beach County, whose district includes a small rural area on the east coast of Lake Okeechobee.
However, many other people don’t take the pandemic seriously. Last month, county leaders threatened to impose a curfew after six hundred others attended a community party in Pahokee.
And in some Hispanic communities, many others continue to hold celebrations, adding quinceañeras, said Dr. Alina Alonso, head of health for Palm Beach County.
“When a woman reaches 15, it’s a big problem. No one needs to cancel, COVID or not COVID,” said Alonso, who is Cuban.
Although COVID-19 has governed the data cycle since March, calls from fitness officials for social protection and estrangement are unsuccessful in the less privileged.
Many communities of color do their best to spread the word in Spanish, Creole and q’anjob’al, the Mayan language spoken through many Guatemalans.
“These are other people who have more difficulty data and who, in addition, have a greater distrust of the data promoted through the physical fitness authority, so they are less likely to pay attention to the recommendations, either by doubt or if they simply do I do not perceive the consequences of not following the recommendation,” said Dr. De Almeida of JFK.
“And that may also be just because your schooling point is lower. Matrix… They probably wouldn’t even know the words they say: “Social distance? What does that mean?””
The void has charities and churches to intervene.
Around the Glades, Jackson-Moore coordinates a center that conducts coronavirus testing and distributes food every Friday at the Belle Glade, South Bay and Pahokee sites.
Further east, the Guatemala-Maya Center strives to detect, prevent and distribute food.
“They are at the point of economics where everything happens right next to them,” said Deacon Gerry Palermo of the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Lake Worth Beach. “They are not included in the dialogues. They’re not the first to look for each other, so let’s look for them.”
As a component of its core efforts to teach migrants about coronavirus prevention measures, Palermo visits fuel stations along National Highway 7 in southern Palm Beach County.
While farm staff rest while their trucks refuel, Palermo distributes flyers containing the main points of COVID’s loose testing in Lake Worth Beach.
She reconnects with many of these people on Saturdays as they wait with their families in long lines of cars. “Hello, do you need a loose bread bar,” Palermo said through his protective mask while driving from car to car with a Publix donation box on Saturday last month.
He also distributed census forms. More importantly, he reminded everyone in the car to call the Maya Center of Guatemala in case of a positive test.
Palermo stated that he answered those calls every other day and made an appointment for a home visit.
“Those who call me, I know they love me, ” he said.
Pack your Honda Accord with attention packs filled with coronavirus prevention parts: masks, gloves, bleach, cleaner, disinfectant, vitamin C, toothbrushes and various bottles of hand sanitizer, one for the kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and living room.
“I just cleaned a woman’s space blank where her husband first sneezed on Tuesday and died Friday. He’s 40 years old, Palermo said. I was there to leave the space blank, helping her disinfect the space to protect herself and her children.”
It even brings PVC pipes and plastic sheets, in case you want to create a quarantine domain in a dining room.
“I tell them that if they can lie down on their own, they can isolate themselves. We have barriers. If it’s dedicated, they can isolate themselves,” he said.
He jokes that his necklace gives him some credibility. But he understands Latinos’ reluctance to heed the recommendations of government officials.
“There’s a stigma for being sick. There’s a lot of concern related to that. People don’t need to communicate,” he said. “Even the words ‘quarantine’ and ‘isolation’. For many people, it seems “prison.”
After being welcomed in a space south of downtown Lake Worth Beach, Palermo praised Maria Alonso for quading a 23-year-old roommate who had tested positive.
In the living room, Alonso passed Alonso a disinfectant spray.
“Do you know how to get COVID from their husbands? Wash clothes,” he said. “Spray this for all the bedding and clothes before throwing it in the washing machine.”
Dressed in a mask and gloves, he entered a corner room to see the 23-year-old man. Palermo pointed a portable thermometer at the man’s head and reported that he did have a fever.
He then held an ultraviolet light, which kills the virus, on the surfaces of the room.
The boy supplies the space with six members of a family, adding María Alonso. Although he no longer felt symptoms, Alonso said the virus was still on his mind.
“It’s very unpredictable,” he said. “Who’s going to get it? Will I get it? Everyone’s too scared.”
He thanked Palermo, who said goodbye and then stood by his car for his post-visit ritual: spraying himself with chlorine and throwing his plastic gloves into a position in the trunk.
Palermo knows the risks of his work. He also knows it’s more than ever.
“From a human point of view,” he said, “how is it possible that it is not wonderfully satisfactory to receive assistance during the most difficult days of your life?”
Writer Liz Balmaseda contributed to this story.